Before you get all excited though, there’s stuff you should know. From our FAQ:

For actual bloggers, we’ll make OPTIONAL blogger packs available to bloggers who wish to hop on board to blog the event. Here’s what optional means, guys- it’s optional for the merchants to provide them, and it’s optional for the bloggers to blog them. I’m not the blogger police, and I’m definitely not the merchant police, either. I find this all works much more smoothly when everyone has a healthy dose of respect for everyone else, so let’s do that.

In short, I’m not the blogger police. No one is required to put out review copies for bloggers and no bloggers are required to blog everything they get review copies OF. Everyone is required to not act like a jackass(except Uffda, because he IS a jackass.). It’s pretty simple.

Well I suppose the first thing I should mention is that the shops on DE are now collectively called the Misery Consortium. This really is just to save me a whole lot of typing. Once you get to 10 stores it becomes pretty tedious.
The second thing is that November 15 was the opening of Unhinged, a month long gacha/shopping/music festival to raise money for our friend, Eku Zhong. Eku needs a bone in her jaw replaced which has become dangerously compromised due to cancer and subsequent treatments. In order to get the new prosthetic, it must rather obviously be custom made, and the out of pocket costs of such a thing were exorbitant. A bunch of her friends got together (quite a lot of them, really) to help get her the cash she needs to get her face put back together properly. Eku and her partner also have a booth at the fair (and oh wow is the stuff in it cute, seriously.) But as for us, Beautiful Freak, Dare Designs, and House of Rain are there.
Dare built the music venue, and the first 24 hours were nonstop (I had two sets, myself.) Club Gothika is hosting the music (literally- they’re using our stream.) I’ve been asked to come back at least once more to put forth another set of big band swing and standards (which is likely to happen on Thursdays at 10am SLT, as it’s the only time I can realistically do it.) but you can see what sets are coming up by going to that link above.

So the next few posts will show the stuff we have going on at Unhinged and we really invite you to go down there and have a look around. A lot of people put an obscene amount of effort in a *VERY* short time to pull this together, and we’re all in it together to help Eku out.
For those who just want the damned landmarks already:Unhinged Festival

October is here, and the Monster Gacha Festival is now open. Dare Designs has rigged mesh corsets as their offering. Each one comes with three sizes plus an included alpha layer.

Because this item is mesh you will need a mesh capable viewer to see if properly. The corsets are transferable, so you can trade duplicates with your friends, and the rare prizes are one of the corset variations and a 500L gift card to Dare Designs.

It’s June again, and that means that it’s time to haul out the DARKSKATE rink again for the best birthday party a cat could ever have. That’s right- it’s time for OOPSKATE. But this year, it’s more than that.

(This is a copy/paste of the notecard contained within the event poster.)

Hi everyone,

Once again June has rolled around, which makes it time for OOPSKATE, the virtual birthday party for a real cat.

For those who have never been to an Oopskate before, it’s a dark electro/industrial roller skating event (at least it STARTS that way…where it ends is up for grabs) for Rupert, a real live cat, much beloved at Gothika. This year, we’re calling it 00pzkate, because we’re all about the 00tz 00tz, and he’s an oops oops.)

Rupert turns 3 this year, and as always there will be an insane party for him on his birthday, June 15 at 10pm SLT.

But this year there’s something else we want to do.

Charles Rehill, a member of the electro/synthpop band Lost Signal(a band often played in our club) recently had a nightmare befall his family.

His wife Kristine recently gave birth to their first child, 6 weeks prematurely. Even though Kristine (and the baby) were insured to the tune of paying $1000USD a month for coverage that they believed was 80/20, the insurance company has refused to pay for a significant portion of the baby’s (Eric) hospital stay in NICU. They have charged Charles and Kristine roughly $250,000USD (not a typo) for medical bills relating to the birth of their son.

Whether they pay the bill, or declare bankruptcy because of it (something they adamantly do not want to do) they need help, at the very least to afford the attorneys to fight the insurance company.

The Gothika staff have agreed to make this year’s 00pzkate a benefit to help in this fundraising effort. I have asked Rupert if he minds, and he says doesn’t need more presents, since he has all the food and treats and toys and love and care he could ever want(and the world revolves around his fuzzy little navel anyway- how many cats can you name that get birthday parties?). All proceeds raised at 00pzkate will be donated to Charles, Kristine and Eric via their Chip In account which you can see here:

The contest will be (as it always is) Best in Orange and DJed by DJ Bronxelf. In addition, there will be exclusive items to buy from Dare Designs, Damned Good Design, Malfean Visions and Pie’s Half-Baked Goods. The proceeds will all go toward the fundraiser, and these will be items you cannot get anywhere else.

As always, free skates and birthday hats will be available to everyone!

The party will be held at the Darkskate Rink at Dark Eternity, which you can reach by using this LM the night of the event:

No matter how much we raise, it will help Charles, Kristine and Eric deal with this mess.

Thanks, and we’ll see you on the 15th!-The Staff of Club Gothika

We don’t usually ask this, but every bit we collect will help them out. So if you can plug, post, retweet, facebook, plurk, journal, WHATEVER IT IS YOU DO to get the word out about this, we’d appreciate it.

-But…But… What if I don’t have an SL account?

Well, you could make one if you like and come and join us (we’d love that!) But if you just want to tune in from wherever you are, you can! The Gothika stream is public. You can tune into it that night right here: http://aqua.neostreams.info:8036 and hit the “Listen” button which will download the .pls file (which can be opened in winamp or itunes or whatever it is you use to listen to music via your computer).

The DJ Bronxelf stream is also public and is published before each set via twitter @DJBronxelf.

-Do they know you’re doing this?

As of this writing, they have no clue. They don’t even know we exist(at some point they’re likely to find out, though), save a few staff members have donated privately to the chipin fund already. The point is that they get the help they need. The music we play at Gothika is a relatively (more or less) tight series of genres. The people who make that music and their fans represent a very small community. Even those who could be considered the “stars” are big fish in a small pond. They’re not millionaires, they’re not rolling around bare ass naked in a room full of money. They’re hard working men and women who love what they do KNOWING that their audience is, by comparison to many other genres, small.

We play this stuff every day. We listen to it on our mobiles. We go see shows, and buy merchandise. But right now, this is a bigger problem than usual, and Gothika, as a staff and group of friends(and we are), believe strongly in supporting the people who support us. Even if they don’t know us. Because we know them, and we want them to be able to continue to make music, not panic on a minute by minute basis on how they’re going to find the money to deal with a problem like this.

-ETA: What if I have something I want to donate!

Sounds awesome! Get in touch. IM Axi Kurmin or Dare Munro inworld, or shoot a tweet to @djbronxelf on twitter. We’re happy to include you. Just bear in mind that 100% of the proceeds of the sale will be used toward the chipin fund.

We’re pleased to add PA Designs adorable Less Than Three tshirt to the items which will be sold at the event. Photo below:

(as soon as we get photos of other items for sale, including our own, we’ll post them here.)

—

If anyone has any questions please leave them in comments- we’ll do our best to answer them here- and I personally will post a copy of the receipt showing the money (no matter how much or little it is) that was sent to the Chipin fund for this via Paypal.

Thirty days of hunting madness comes to an end with teh official wrap-up party for the First Annual Gothmas by Gaslight Hunt.
It’s been a great month and we have enjoyed working with all the vendors who joined us for this hunt – the people were great and the prizes were wonderful – and now we have a wrap-up event to cap it all off in style. Damned Good Design and Dare Designs are sponsoring DJ Lokii Violet for two hours of gothic goodness, with a ‘Best in Winter Goth’ contest (1000L on each contest board, which goes up as more people join in), an all new random prize raffle, a beautiful limited edition dress from Dare Designs, hot Gothika dancers, and more.http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dark%20Eternity/156/105/31
See you there. – DM

The Club Gothika Mobile Unit will be bringing the holiday… well bringing the holiday something, anyway. We’ve got a holiday masked ball to start the hunt off right. The contest is Best in Gothmas. There will be$1000L to start on each board and as always that prize money only goes up with each page we flip. There will be prizes and a tombola and the gatcha machine too. So come on down and join us on the 15th!